Bug

I was driving home from work this afternoon after leaving the building a few minutes early. As I walked down the sidewalk to my car, I felt something on the top of my head. Like something dropped out of the tree branches overhead. A leaf maybe??? I swept the top of my head with my hand and continued to my car.

It was warm outside, I had my windows rolled down like always. I'm cruising down the road, singing with the radio when something sort of itched on the back of my neck. I reached back there....and felt a HUGE bug sitting just below my hairline. A big ol' crusty June-bug kinda bug, if my sense of feel is right. Could be wrong. I screamed and went into serious survival mode.

Yeah, he was biting me. Or nibbling or something.
And helllllll yeah I screamed LOUD and I swerved the car with my right hand as I grabbed the bug with my left hand and flung it out the window.

I never really SAW it.
I felt it. (Yuck!!!)
And I heard it. (ZZZzzz. YUCK!!!!!)
Out of the corner of my eye it was dark and ominously huge.
Fanged, possibly. Can't be sure.
Dangerous?
I'm certain.

I hate bugs.
No picture to prove it but I can feel a little welt on my neck. I'm sure it's there.
They say June bugs don't bite. THEY have never had a June bug on their neck.
Dang thing bit me.
I SWEAR it.

And that's just about as much adventure as I care to enjoy today.

Sand in my Hair

One of my favorite weekends of the summer: just a couple of plane hops to Stone Harbor, a bit of a drive down the Atlantic City Expressway and we're tucking ourselves into seaside saltbox bedrooms. I go to sleep listening to the ocean roar beyond the sand dunes that rise just a handful of yards from my open window. In the morning I walk the beach as seagulls breakfast out of the morning tide and leave open shells for me to collect and carry back to Iowa. I'll cement the little hinged memories into my patio birdbath and remember the mornings I gloried in the simple luxury of an outdoor shower. There is something so decadently delicious about shampooing your hair in the morning sunshine.

It's a working weekend, most of which is spent talking to customers at Trendz Gallery in Stone Harbor, New Jersey. Once I shower the sand from my feet after my morning walk it's all about Sticks until well after dark, but you won't hear any complaining from me. Saturday as I sat in the outdoor garden where we meet with customers all weekend I looked around and sighed and laughed to my co-worker and friend Amy, who traveled with me to the show, "sucks to be us..."

I took pictures of everything I could see from my spot on the bench under the blue Atlantic skies.


This is where holly spends it's summers, I guess. Before it packs up and heads to Iowa in the form of Christmas wreaths.



In between visits with customers I dropped crumbs of a blueberry muffin on the ground for little birds and they entertained me by taking their morning bath in this fabulous piece that sits in the shade of the garden.



A metal sculpture combining a contemporary design and process with a vintage sentiment.

I love garden art.

Inside the gallery a new friend and sales rep for Heather Moore's line of beautiful, handcrafted gold and silver charm jewelry was helping shore visitors choose and design one-of-a-kind pieces. Fabulous jewelry. Just gorgeous. Fun to spend the weekend with you, Gabriella. Keep in touch!!

Ok, a little weird. I'd have to agree.

But aren't they fun?!!!

I love the contrast of these smooth stone eggs against the random ribbons of glass another artist wove into sweet little dishes. The eggs are tiny, like quail.

Not to forget my best girls. Sticks Hallelujah Ladies.
At Stone Harbor, they're mermaids with fabulous hair and the requisite sea shells placed....just so.....to cover their assets.

What is great art?
Ponder that a bit. There is no "right" answer.
It's different for all of us.

For me, it's something that makes me smile.

I Love a Truck Stop

I do! I love truckstops.
Haven't wandered one yet that I couldn't find some sweet, trashy little Hello-From-Ogalalla souvenir kinda thing that I've just got to take home and keep forever and ever.

Mid-Nebraska we hit a roadside BP fill-er-up and there it was: the perfect Independence Day commemorative. Sparkly and snazzy, a red, white and blue burst of fireworks on a long enough chain that it hung juuuuuuuuuuust right, all cozy and everything.



God Bless America, is this a great country or what.
Bernie thinks so. I could tell by the look in his eyes. Teri and I fell in love with BP Bernie when he nodded approval over our necklace purchases from behind the Waco counter. A nice lady coming out of the women's restroom was kind enough to snap a picture. As they say............the rest is history.

Isn't that a face and a smile you could just give a big ol' kiss?



We LOVE you Bernie!!!! See you next trip!!!!

My Best Judy

I met my friend Judy years ago when I spent time in Denver studying. Feeling just a bit displaced and slightly lost in the wake of my recent divorce, she adopted me like she's done with countless other wayward souls over the years. She's been like a mom to me ever since. Our relationship has been mostly via email exchanges flying back and forth between the our keyboards over the years because of the distance between our homes.

The few in-person visits we've enjoyed are memorable treats. She has enlightened me and taught me through her experiences and wisdom. She's an incredible person. Gatherings in her little home --- which I've described here before --- can best be described as "holding court": Judy, usually in pink, center-stage, regaling the likes of me and her other friends, with tales of her life. She makes us laugh until we hurt.

Judy is a woman of great faith. I've learned so much through her eyes and gentle suggestions. A few years back Judy told me she was driving in the mountains, something she just loved to do. She had a destination in mind but no real time schedule. At some point as she drove along enjoying the morning she explained to me she felt like she was supposed to pull off the road. She did so, parking the car on a side road and looked around at the beautiful scenery. In that moment, a beautiful, bright rainbow appeared and....as she described it....just surrounded her with the most incredible colors and sense of peace she had ever, ever experienced. She sat there for the longest time, enveloped in the moment and feeling like she was experiencing the arms of God wrapped around her. Rainbows became a special symbol to Judy.

It wasn't too many months after that moment in the mountains, Judy was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. It was in her lungs and her bones and oh my goodness, I'm not sure where else, it was just everywhere. "Termites" she called them, not tumors. She defied the doctors insistence she'd be dead and buried within a couple months time. "If it's all the same to you," she said "I'm not ready to leave yet."

No, she certainly was not. It's more than 2 years later.

I emailed Judy in June to tell her my best friend Teri and I were coming to spend the 4th of July with her. A frenzy of emails flew back and forth, I'm sure she fussed over her apartment a bit. She told me she was making a grocery list so we could shop for her once we arrived. Last Thursday Teri and I threw our bags in the car and headed West toward Denver.

Life truly is what happens while we're making all our grand plans. As we covered the miles across Nebraska toward the Rocky mountains, Judy's little body reached the point she'd had just about enough. By the time we arrived in Colorado her family had tucked her into the comforting arms of hospice where she is now free of pain, surrounded by her family and waiting for the moment she finally goes home.

We didn't see Judy this weekend.
We decided it would be best to let her family have their final moments with her and we will remember her the way we saw her last: smiling, laughing, fussing over our coffee cups with refills, covering our knees with deliciously soft chenille throws for the chill in the winter air and whispering a gentle warning.....Debbie, don't tip back in that chair, it's' old and it's cracked............just as I did exactly that and landed flat on my back in the middle of her living room. Everyone felt like royalty at Judy's house. How befitting she'll soon be wearing a crown in heaven.

The coolest thing happened on the way home from Denver. Rain fell as we drove out of town. We were talking about the weekend. Talking about Judy and our memories of her. Beyond Denver, wide spaces opened up, green and lush against a dark, stormy sky. As the wipers swiped across the windshield of my car, a rainbow appeared. It was intense, bright and beautiful. Incredibly so. It was like we were driving toward the most brilliant, colorful arch of light you could imagine.

And then...........


.....the arm of the rainbow stretched down out of the sky.......

....over the road.....

...........until it touched the hood of the car. Literally. As we drove, the filmy golds and pinks and greens glistened off the hood of our car in the rain. Just as Judy experienced perfect peace all those long months ago, we felt it now, reminded of the grace with which she has walked through this long and difficult battle with her termites.


An amazing rainbow, the perfect ribbon wrapped around what has been the most beautiful gift of a friendship with an amazing woman. We love you, Judy.

Smells Like Fresh Rubber

Why is Debbie smiling as the wind blows in her hair?
Because it's a fabulously, beautiful day after a week of sweltering heat and humidity, the sky is blue and the temps have dropped and.........




And because I just got new tires on my car.


No........tires are not that exciting.
No........I don't like hanging out in the auto shop for an hour on a gorgeous morning where I have to write a check for over five hundred dollars before all is said and done. For tires. TIRES. Not the most exciting thing in the world to shop for or purchase. But my sweet little car needed 'em so that's what she got.

The car is happy.
And that makes mama happy.
Vrooom Vroooooom

Arrowhead Stadium in the Summer

The kids were little. The boys maybe 5 and 7, their little sister toddling around on 3-year old legs. The annual Family Picnic was rolling around, same time, same place, same relatives. That's ok. Those aunts of mine make a wicked potato salad, well worth the trip to the other side of the county. I promised to be there.

Until I heard the announcement on the radio.
The concert was scheduled to be held three hours away in Kansas City at Arrowhead Stadium. Tickets would be sold by lottery with only a certain number available for Iowa buyers. We tried. Ohhh man we tried! Sad and disappointed, the ticket lottery came and went, leaving us empty-handed. We scoured the newspapers but the scalp prices were crazy.....$300 for a pair to start out. Closer to the concert date the prices came down a bit, but not much. This was wayyyy back when and that was one huge pile of money for a concert in KC.

I caught a glimpse of the ad as I was flipping through the newspaper.

Six tickets for the Jackson concert in KC.
We'll sell them for what we paid for them.
$50 bucks each.

I called the guy and offered him everything but a gallon of my blood to hold the tickets until I could get to his front door in a neighboring town. I called my cousin. We couldn't believe it. We were on our way!!!!! A week later on a sweltering summer day I grabbed my baby sister, taped a "Don't start without us, Michael!!!" sign in the back window of the car, picked up my cousin as we sent our husbands and kids to the family reunion without us (bad bad girls!!!!) and headed down to KC.

That I somehow managed to lock the car keys AND the concert tickets into the trunk of the car in the black asphalt parking lot of the stadium later that afternoon in 100-degree temperatures is a memory that pales in comparison to that of the distance we had to climb to reach our seats in Arrowhead Stadium. I'm not sure how far up we were but I do remember passing a sign that said "Nosebleed Section" at which level the ushers were handing out oxygen bottles to those of us that still had about 23 rows left to climb. Once seated I swear to you I saw all my dead relatives float by on clouds with a wave and curious looks on their faces that said, "What the hell are you doing up here, it's not your time yet......"

Soooo what!!! We were THERE!!!!!!
From our celestial vantage point, while the rest of the crowd hummed in ignorant anticipation, we were able to see the vans pull up back stage as the Jackson brothers arrived. With the use of high-powered binoculars we could actually get a good enough look to figure out which one was Michael. He was the one little miniature person wayyyyyyyyyyy wayyyyyyyyyyy down there wearing a glove on one hand.

My cousin saw him first. She threw down the binoculars, shrieked "Michael is down there!!!!" and we all started to scream.

"How do you know!!!! How do you know it's HIM!!!???????"

We were all crying and screaming.
"THE GLOVE!!! I CAN SEE THE GLOVE!!!!!!!!"

Lower levels of the stadium hadn't a clue but those of us up in the rafters with our scalped tickets got the first glimpse of Michael Jackson before he hit the stage on his Thriller tour in Kansas City, Missouri. It was him all right. We could see him. Well..........we could see the glove. It was him. IT WAS HIM!!!!!!

OH!!! MY!!! GOD!!!!!!!
OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!!!!!!!!!

I watched him grow up. First time I saw him was at the Iowa State Fair. He was the cute little brother of the Jackson 5. Before all the craziness. The nose. The kids. Before he wouldn't sell the Beatles tunes back to Paul. Before all the ugliness started. Who knows what was true. What were lies. Who knows what happens along the way to make a talented little boy grow up to have so many problems. He's gone and we'll never really know.

I choose to remember him just like I saw him on that sweltering summer day. He danced across the stage with his brothers in heat that had me panting for air. And I was just jumping up and down screaming. We got our $50 bucks worth, for sure.

I said you wanna be startin somethin',
You got to be startin' somethin,
Said you wanna be startin' somethin,
You got to be startin' something....


Thanks for the music.
Thanks for the great memories.

Soggy-tuck Michigan

The rain started coming down this weekend where I was working. I've told you about Saugatuck before; quaint little artsy town on the shores of Lake Michigan. 1,000 people before tourists. Three times that in the summer, lots of wandering folks and girls like me, in town to work at a wonderful gallery in the center of town.

The rain started coming down on Friday as we drove in, making us weave and crawl our way through miles and miles of road construction barriers and cones in a one-by-one curtain of mud-flap spray and blurred tail lights. Every warning about hydro-planing my drivers ed. teacher Mr. Peacock ever gave me came to mind. Visibility was just this side of zip. The sun broke through and pushed the clouds away just as we arrived. Good sign.

But it started raining again and it just kept coming down. We grabbed umbrellas mid-evening and walked a quick 2 blocks to dinner. The rain kept coming down. And down. And dowwwwwwn. We saw lightning. We heard thunder. The restaurant lights flickered. Once. Twice. Diners held their breath and shoveled in supper, wondering if we'd all end up in the dark.

An hour later when we stepped outside the restaurant we found ourselves on a small sidewalk island in an ocean of rain water. Within 4-5 steps beyond the entry of the place the "puddles" started.

I hesitate to call them puddles. Puddles are the sort of thing that babies splash up from the bath. Puddles are the naughty little pools that a new puppy leaves on the kitchen floor when he can't hold back how happy he is to see you. I know puddles. People drool them on pillows.
I savor them in the middle of my mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving. I KNOW puddles.
These were not puddles. These were more like the arms of nearby Lake Michigan reaching up from the banks and shoving her hands down the street where she could pull you in by the ankles. I am not kidding you, when I stepped off the restaurant stoop into that water I swear I saw the Edmund Fitzgerald and wondered if the church bells were going to ring for me tomorrow. This was SERIOUS WATER.

There was no avenue of escape, we just had to take off our shoes and wade, lamp post to lamp post until we made it back to our little guest house. That's just what we did. And you know how it is, you're in the water, you're wet. Why not preserve the moment in photographs.

So I stopped in the middle of the street, pulled out my camera, protected it (sort of) with my umbrella (which had blown inside out, so it wasn't providing a great deal of protection from anything really anyway) and took a couple of pictures of my friends Sandra and Angie they clung to one another for dear life and made their way up the sidewalk in front of me.



I'll bet your are looking at that picture and thinking "is that water really almost up to her skirt?" Yes, it was. Had the three of us held hands, pointed our toes and done a little bit of a wavy thing with our arms we could easily have been mistaken for a synchronized swimming team. Sorry the photos are blurry. I was trying to balance the camera and the umbrella and my purse with my shoes in my hands. You get the idea.

Wet. Really, reallllly wet.

We finally reached our little second floor guest house where I slept like a baby with the wind in the treetops outside my open window. The sounds of storms continued well into the wee hours of the morning. It was only as the sun came up that everyone in town began to discover their basements were flooded, the roads were caved in, trees had uprooted and all those fabulous bedding plants they'd tucked into the ground a few weeks earlier were halfway to Chicago.

We know all about floods here in Iowa.
As we left yesterday I told them all our hearts were with them but really, it was too early for them to even understand what I meant. Unfortunately, they'll come to understand all too clearly..........later.

What Sunday Looks Like

This is what Sunday looks like.



Week to week it's pretty much the same table, different books.
Have laptop, will travel. Maybe a bagel. Usually a coffee.
There is always company. Three of us in our study group.
This is Jill.



She's one of my study partners and my great friend. We sat down for our first night in class together right around the time my Sara moved away. They're the same age and so of course I've added her to my little herd of adopted family members. Our co-partner in our three-peoples team of crime fighters is John. He left before the camera came out today. One of these days I'll introduce you to him.

Anyway, Jill had a wee bit of a disappointment this week. Big deal at the time. Based on my own experiences, in the grand context of things, a teensy little blip on the screen that she'll learn from and forget. Do you doubt it? Just look at that smile....



Love ya, Jilly!! You'll get by with your great attitude and perhaps for a short while, with a little help from your friends.

Happy Birthday Bucky!!!

Yesterday one of my favorite people turned the ol' odometer from old to older than dirt. To loosely quote his personal sentiments on the auspicious occasion, he is now "a card carrying member of the KMA club." Or something like that. You get the idea. We're old enough we don't give a whoopteedo 'bout what anyone thinks, we pretty much live life as it feels right for us and go about our biz unfettered by the opinions of others.

I love that about people my age. And I love my friend Bucky to pieces. I've kinda known him since I was a junior high kid where we skated around the same roller rink on Saturday nights. Years later our families lived in the same small town, raising our kids and working together at the same widdy-biddy post office. We think alike, which isn't necessarily a compliment to either of us, just an acknowledgment that one loose screw deserves another when it comes to choosing friends.

If you pass him on the street on a work day, he'll be nattily dressed as a mild-mannered shirt and tie sort of fella. After hours, he'll just look like Grandpa. I thought I'd dress him up for his birthday since every little boy at one point or another wants to be a cowboy when he grows up.

If you pass him on the street this weekend, wish him a Happy Birthday.



And ask him for directions to the nearest buffalo.

All things green and glorious

Before I left for the airport I tucked everyone in......My cat. He had a full bowl of food, a tidy litter box, radio on upstairs in case he got lonely and an open window so he could sit and enjoy the fresh air.

My plants. Watered, shades open so they got plenty of sunshine. Outdoors I gave all of the newly potted flowers a good watering and whispered a little "good luck" as I threw my suitcases into the car. They were on their own, at the mercy of the weather which...this time of year......can be completely unpredictable.

One week later I come home and whooooaaaaa................everything is lush and green and gorgeous. Except for a flat of sad little guys I forgot to stick in the dirt. To the untrained eye they look ohhh-so-pathetic and quite dead.

For example, this sorry little zinnia.
I choose zinnia's because my townhouse faces South and the summer sun on my patio can be wicked. Strong plants that thrive on all-day sun survive, but only if I water them twice a day. Not watering baby zinnias before they are planted and still living in little greenhouse packs is pretty much a death sentence if you leave them alone for a week. Good and caring garden chicks would not do this. Sadly, I hang my head in shame. I forgot to plant them.

Feeling terribly guilty I started poking around under all that brown, crunchy stuff a bit and got all excited when I found a tiny, tender little green stem. Hmmmmmmmm. A chance to redeem myself. This is a challenge and I'm going to meet it. Tonight I tucked four of these cripsy-critter lookin' guys into fresh dirt and I'm gonna baby 'em back to life or ruin my fingernails trying.


Half an hour down the road another botanical tragedy was taking place as I whiled away the hours working in Las Vegas last week. Take a look at this pretty little miniature rose I had sitting on my desk at work. Sweet, huh?


My desk is on the second floor of our studio. As you can see, just beyond the steel rail that keeps me from falling to my death every time I dive for an errant paper that shoots out of my printer with a mind of it's own, are big doors that open into the fresh air of the outdoors. Seemingly the perfect place for a lovely little rose to thrive, right?

Wrong.
Super-wrong. This is the same miniature rose. Oh what a difference a week makes.

It withered, wilted, drooped and pretty much gave itself up for mulch in the short six days I was gone. Disappointed? You bet I was disappointed. You don't wither up and die on my watch, buster. Home to the intensive care nursery for you.

Tonight he got a good clipping, a new pot and a spot in the sun next to several other plants who know how to behave. Hopefully he'll learn by example.

Before I took off my garden gloves this afternoon I had one more very important pot to fill. Here, I'll give you a peek.



This pot is a surprise. I can't tell you what is under the dirt until later. I can tell you, you're gonna love it.................IF all goes as planned. Fingers crossed............stay tuned.

I LOVE Cab Drivers

I do love cab drivers. I meet lots of them throughout the year and wonder if anyone has ever done a study on the collective personalities of a city's cabbies in relation to the city itself. Does that group of mobile ambassadors reflect anything about the city in which they live and work?

I think they might.
Twice in Philadelphia I've been taken on the tell-tale "ride".........you know, the ride where you get in the cab, tell the driver where you want to go and he ends up driving around in loops just to knock the fare up a few bucks because he knows you're from out of town and won't know the difference. Problem is, I know the difference in Philly because I have worked there lots. Enough to know a cab ride from one spot to another should take about so many minutes. But I don't know my way around enough to be able to tap the guy on the shoulder and say "Dude, you shoulda turned back there....why didn't you?" I just don't trust cabbies in Philly.

It took me several rides in another city to decide they apparently never hire people who speak English. First few rides the drivers kept mumbling and I assumed they were talking to me. I listened, trying to understand them and respond. Took me a while to realize they speaking Hindi or Guatamalish or Ethiopian, they were talking into the blue tooth headset in their ear....and I'm pretty sure they were saying something along the lines of "Dumb American chick in my back seat thinks I'm trying to talk to her."

In the city where I live, the only sure spot to find a taxi cab is at the airport.
If you're visiting town, don't plan on eating out and then catching a cab back to your hotel after dinner. Huh-uh. These streets ain't the Field of Dreams, folks. If you build up your hopes of a ride home..............there is no promise they will come. If you make the call on Wednesday, make sure you've got provisions to get you through the weekend just in case. It's going to be a long wait. On the other hand, if you are at the airport and you want a ride home after a return flight, you won't have a problem. Jack (named changed to protect me) is always there waiting. At least he always seems to be there waiting for me. Last three times I hitched a cab ride home from the airport, Jack was curbside to grab my bags. Jack is a friendly cab driver. Very friendly. He's chatty too. He will ask you if you had a good trip. He will ask you if you like to travel. He will ask you if your husband or boyfriend likes it that you travel. The FIRST time he asks you that, you will tell him you're not married................and then he'll tell you his wife doesn't understand him and.....well, you know where this is going.

Rewind and tell Jack the friendly cab driver that your husband the former Marine drill instructor black belt in karate and gold medal-winning Olympic sharp-shooter has a terrible temper and HATES it that you travel. Jack will dispatch you to the doorstep swiftly, help you with your luggage and graciously decline your tip.

Speaking of friendly...........I'm working in Las Vegas this week.
And this is my new favorite cab driver.



He greeted us with a genuine smile, chatted all the way to the hotel, slowed down a bit so we could gawk at a fender bender that did mean things to a real expensive car and hummed out loud, declaring "she sure has nice booty" when we passed a billboard announcing Beyonce was coming to town soon.
Who could disagree and I do love genuine, unbridled enthusiasm in anyone.

Thanks for the ride, Ernesto.

Great Weekend

I should be in bed. I've been off four days, I want to be at work early tomorrow because I'm working out of town all next weekend. Dang, but I just can't make myself close the door on this holiday weekend until the verrrrry last minute...which has just about arrived.

The bike is assembled!! Heck yeah!!!
Rode it on Friday afternoon. Need to make some adjustments but me and the tools made peace, we put the bike together and it actually looks just like the picture on the website. I'll take some pictures.

The rest of the weekend was just fun. Went to street festival with the kids on Saturday. The clouds opened up just about the time we arrived and rain pretty much closed down the party. We stood around yakking in the rain which was fun anyway. We had two little 1-year old's with us, teensy little girls in sandals that have just recently learned to walk and they both were completely delighted at discovering street puddles. While everyone else was hiding under umbrellas and tarps, the two of them gleefully pranced around in the water, completely oblivious to the falling rain. Can't imagine they could have had any more fun unless maybe they were naked...everyone knows babies love runnin' around stripped down to the birthday suit.

Sunday afternoon my study group...whereas I might add we have recently streamlined our fine selfs down to a compact unit of three members who get along famously.... met here at my place. John just got back from duty in Italy and brought some wine that he thoughtfully carried all the way back on the plane. Jill brought crackers and this cream cheese/jalapeno jelly stuff that is wicked delish. I threw together some sandwiches and we had ourselves a bit of a party under the shade of the patio umbrella. As a nice breeze blew we spent a little bit of time discussing our strategy for next weeks in-class debate on smoking, religion and stuff, a lot of time talking about life in general and what we plan to be when we grow up. By the end of the second bottle Jill (the youngster in the group, I might add) needed to nap on my couch, John was pontificating on the wardrobe preferences of Middle Eastern women and I'd become more intelligent than you could possibly imagine.
I slept pretty darned good last night.

Company always tuckers out my Binks.



He's been like this most of the day. I swear we didn't give him a drop of wine
but I have a feeling last night after I went to bed he was down here licking corks.

My flag few today. Thanks to my son and my best ESteven and Michael in Oregon and Donnie and Russ and Deb and my step-dad and FIL, my uncles and cousins and all of those who served. Thanks to Greg who I follow on Facebook. And John who might be deployed before we have a chance to graduate together.
Thank you, thank you all.

It's time. Day is done.
Off to bed and bring on the summer.

Holiday Weekend Eve

I am twitchy, giddy and generally all a-twitter on the eve of this holiday weekend. My Memorial weekend slate is clean with only fun stuff scheduled. Breakfast with my cuz. A little soiree with my study group. Indeed, my weekend is a calendar of hours just open and waiting for lovely things to happen. I'm going to unfold the next four days like a love letter, one careful crease at a time. Mmmm mmm mmmmmmm. I'm staying up late tonight (read that 9 pm or so....) just so I can prolong the anticipation and spend the evening nibbling on the idea of the unfettered days to come.

I bought tools. Spanners and closed-end thingies in 13mm and 15mm and I dunno what else. A smart gal suggested I hit her favorite upscale tool supply store with my shopping list so I did. Thanks Jan, you were right. They had everything I needed at Target.

Well.......I think I got the right stuff....I'm not positive. None of the tool stuff was labeled like the words in the bike book. I had to shop-by-picture, using the stuff I found when I Googled all the tool names last night.

Hey people!!!!! I think I'm gonna put a bike together tonight!!!!

That's the plan anyway.
More at 11.

Boxes on the Porch

Today is a very exciting day! Came home to find both the UPS guy AND the FedEx guy had visited my front porch. Two boxes to open, ohhh man I LOVE getting stuff from those guys.

First box. Ripped it open with a bottle opener. Pair of shoes! Yeahhh! That new pair of sandals I ordered. Pulled them right out of the box, slipped them on.......easy!



Next box. Bigger. Lots bigger.
It's my bike!!!! I ordered a bike a couple of weeks ago and it's here!!! I'm so excited I could spit. But this is a job for something a little more serious than a bottle opener. Nooooo problem! My craft scissors work nicely. The big staples holding the corners of the box together bend pretty easy and............

Oh.

Ok. Sooooo apparently you don't just rip open the box, slide out the bike and start riding it around the house. (Which yknow, is pretty much the way it works with shoes: open box, put on shoes, walk to mirror, admire feet, congratulate self on great choice....yada yada.)

Not so much with the bike.

Oh dear.

Sheesh. This is looking like some serious business and my happy face is starting to get sad.


Things always look better in the living room. I carry the various pieces in, prop them on the carpet and resolve to face disassembled scary bike like a big girl - with tools!!! I have some!!! How tough can this be..........there's gotta be a little instruction sheet here somewhere, I'm sure it's just a sliding A into B kinda thing. Five minutes and I'll be pedaling down the street. Now where is that instruction sheet.....................

Err...I mean, 64 page Bicycle Owners Manual and Assembly Instructions. This is the part where lesser women hiss and say "ohhhh sh*t!" Not me, baby. Nope. I march to the tool drawer and lay out my nice collection of tools.

I have a nice hammer, some pliers, five flat screwdrivers in a variety of colors and some pointy-pinchy things. And sometimes a big ol' knife and spatula come in handy, too.

Ok, let's tackle this baby and get out there on the bike trail.

The bike assembly instructions aren't bad. I think I can do it. But I'm up a creek, I have never HEARD of these tools. Spanner??? What the...or is that scanner.....put on my glasses. Nope, it's spanner. It says I have to use a 13mm spanner and I haven't a clue. And once I'm done with that, I'm supposed to use a 15mm open ended spanner.

Not to be outdone by a booklet of instructions printed in plain English, I take my study skills straight into the pages of the manual, highlight the unidentified tools and turn to my good friends at GOOGLE. What the freakin' heck is a spanner!!!???????

Huh??? Doesn't that have to be hooked to something like a handle or something? Crum. None of my screwdrivers look anything LIKE that thing.

Or this thing. So yeah. This is the part where I get sigh and say Ohhhhhhhhh sh*t.

And then, of course, I get a grip and do what I always do in situations like this.

I make toast.

What can I say, I'm a stress-eater. Some people pop a Zoloft, some people grab a beer. Me?

I make toast.

I don't know what I'm gonna do now. I feel just a little bit like I might cry.

I won't. But I kinda feel like it.

I'll figure it out.

Stay tuned.

From Wayyyy back when...

Went out for dinner with a guy I used to date in high school. He lives in Oregon and was visiting family back here for the first time in years. Had to grab pizza at an old haunt that hasn't changed much more than an occasional light bulb since the year we graduated. Even the menu looks exactly the same.

Best thin crust pizza on the planet, if we're voting.

Mike went to a different high school than I did. He played football. Nice smile. Laughed easily. Lots of fun. We used to zip around town in his little white car. Soon as we graduated he joined the Air Force. Although we've kept in touch off and on over the years, we've probably crossed paths in person maybe three times since wayyy back when.

After flipping stories back and forth across the table we did a little tour of the city and took a nice, slow drive through the Iowa State Fairgrounds and the old neighborhood where he used to play as a kid. Fun night. Unfortunately I was out of town on business nearly the entire time he was here so we only had the one night to catch up but it was a good time. He's a proud dad and Grandpa. I had to laugh at the amount of time we spent talking about our kids and grandkids. Somethin' so wonderful about the spark in an old friends eyes when they're talking about their kids and grandbabies.

Doubt I could convince my kids to believe it but some of you are old enough to know it's really true........the memories you make when you are young are even sweeter when you relive them with old friends.

Yup. Getting older is lots of fun.

Weekend in Asheville

I'll tell you what, I sipped myself into some serious state of Sweet Tea Oblivion this weekend. I have a great recipe and reputation for it myself, but there is something about the way a tea bag steeps in the shadow of the Smoky Mountains that gives that fabulous tea a most wonderful flavor. Mmmm and oooohhhh shugah!!!!!

I was in the Carolina's working at a wonderful place called New Morning Gallery located in Asheville. The region is known for it's artisans, skilled in all manner of traditional American craft. These are skills that have been handed down from generation to generation. The motto of the gallery is "art for living" and you'll see why as you move on down through the pictures.

The gallery features the finest American Craft work you can find. The wonderful thing is that it's not "don't-touch" art........I love wall art and they have lots of that too, but the store is filled with American Craft art which is functional, textural, touchable and intended to be integrated and used.....as their motto suggests....into your every-day living.

Take a walk with me through the place and I'll show you some really cool stuff......

I especially like fun, sorta odd-ball sculptural pieces. Lots of them to be found in galleries like this. You'd be hard-pressed to find a formal bust of one of the Vanderbilts in this place (although they built the famous Biltmore Estate in Asheville) but there are plenty of crazy dogs and cats and crows and............

......cute little pottery ladies with an attitude.

All over the gallery you'll find hand-crafted tables set with wonderfully creative pottery pieces. On the shelves are place settings of unique pottery and rows and rows of glassware. If you look closer, you'll note that the goblets are hand-blown glass. The pieces are all signed by the artists.

You don't find stuff like this on the shelves at Pottery Barn.

One of my favorite American Craft artists is Chris-Roberts Antieau. She patches her pieces together using wonderful vintage fabrics, outlining each image in beautiful embroidery stitches.

And more glass........

Could you set a suhhh-WEEET table with pretty things like this!!????

Ahhhem, might you please pass the crumpets.......

For a gal who enjoys most of her beverages from a blue Walgreens tumbler, just picking one of these goblets up to read the artist name on the bottom makes me feel a little bit elegant. And look at the kind of magic they create using their glass-work skills for these beautiful chandeliers.

Nice beak, Mister.

Brian Andreas is another great artist. His studio is in Decorah, Iowa and you'll see his work all over the country. I could stand and read the themes of his prints for hours. I picked this one out as a favorite this weekend because it reminds me of my daughter..........

I collect stars and shiny glass things that hang in my window and catch the light. Every time I work in a gallery, I choose another piece to bring home and hang in the window. I hope someday when I give them to my little granddaughter, she'll look at them and remember that Grandma Debbie taught her to love art and color.

So pretty in the light.

At the end of our first working day in Asheville, we were invited to the home of the gallery owner for a tour of his private gardens. I get all light-headed and speechless over flats of pansies and impatiens. You can just IMAGINE how much fun it was to walk in this beautiful place...all through the acres and acres of gardens are pieces of very unique sculptural art.

So THIS is what holly plants do in the spring..........

Because of the abundant shade provided by forests of old trees, woodland plants and hostas thrive in these gardens. Never too hot, never too cold. Never too light. And lots of moisture.

Yes, the garden not only sprawls for acres in every direction but it's also multi-level with little paths winding the way to every nook and cranny, many which have themes.

Inside the house, it's just as cozy and inviting. They really do "LIVE" the motto of their store. The home is just full of "art for living".

You've probably heard me say it before when I've returned home from a trip. It's true. Every time I walk in after one of these trips I set my suitcase down, look around at my own place and say to myself, "I've got to paint this place..........."

Busy, busy

Meetin' myself coming and going this year. Crazy busy.
Worked in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. Good show. Great weather.

Just finished up a class that had me waking up at 2 AM and staring at the ceiling. The course was stressful. But I've gotta tell ya, I spend every Tuesday night with a group of people that I'm crazy about. Last fall we all bunched up together for a picture.

Three of them have dropped. The remaining group rocks. They are awesome. I just love them to pieces. So smart. So interesting. Great life stories. Next to the diploma at the end of the whole deal, they're the best part. At the conclusion of every class we go out and celebrate.
Wayyyyy fun.

Last week one of my Sar's friends let me babysit. Tyler is an absolute doll. Charming. Cute as a little bug. This is he and my Binks having a bit of a chat. You may notice they are about the same size. Actually they are exactly the same size. Yup. They both weigh 23 pounds. I think in
this shot Tyler is establishing superiority by asking Binks to arm wrestle......knowing he'll win of course, because Binks doesn't have the critical component....opposable thumbs.

Yeahhh for sure. He's a sweetie. Grandma Debbie had such a great time with him!!!


So tomorrow morning I'm off to North Carolina for the weekend. The folks I'm working with down there tell me it's sunny and green. They are enjoying a fabulous spring. Should be a good weekend.

Lest you think all these activites leave me no time for relaxation.........au contraire. Last night I had dinner with a guy I used to date in high school. He's visiting his family, in from Vancouver, Oregon and we had a blast at one of the old pizza hangouts from wayyyy back when. Took him on a bit of a field trip around the city so he could see some of the old neighborhoods and how things have changed. Soo much fun and I wish he lived closer. Seems to be the time of life, such fun to renew old friendships.

And to learn new things. My little sportscar laptop is grossly UNDER used by an operator such as myself and I'm commited to learning more so that we can deepen our relationship and make use of all of the wonderful attributes which I have been assured, will make my life sooo much more simple.

We'll see.

In the meanwhile, a few baby steps toward that endeavor..............and my friend Donnie graciously consented to be the model for my most recent Paint program exercise. I thought he would make a great pirate. Avast, ye scoundrels!!!!!

Arrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Great Stuff Comes in Pink Packages

Let me just quickly say...........this going to school and work and business-trip schedule is just about killin' me. And it doesn't help that this new laptop has a mind of it's own. The cursor is possessed and jumps all over the place, mid-sentence. WHERE IS MY YELLOW LEGAL PAD.....!!!!!!!!

And I'm soo soooo tired.
Thus I'll direct you past what has momentarily become something of a lifeless online spot to one that surely will fascinate you. My adventurous daughter has started her own blog so that her friends and family can keep track of her comin's and goin's. As you read, you'll realize what I mean...she's been on the road lots over the past few years and she's got plenty to write about.

This is my Sar.
She's not usually so....pink. Only for special occasions.



She's fun and I adore her. She's also a heck of a writer.
Drop in, check her out and tell her mama said hi.

www.tenaciousmakins.blogspot.com

It's H1N1, People. Now for heaven's sake, go out and buy some BACON

We raise pigs around here. Lots of them. The pork industry is big-time in Iowa. If you grew up here like I did, you know lots about them.

No. You do not get the flu from eating pork.
You can fry bacon tomorrow and eat it all morning long and you won't get the flu. You can stuff ham into your sandwich. You can grind up sausage and spread it all over your pizza. Heck, you can kiss pigs all day long and you won't get the flu.

C'mon. You know I'm right. Don't tell me some of you haven't kissed a few over the years and lived to tell the story. Sheesh. Who hasn't. My best friend and I laugh about the night I came home and called her after a date a few years back. Seemed to be a good guy. Met him through friends.

"Did you like him?"
"Yeahhh, he seems nice enough."
"Well? Are you going to see him again??"
"Mmmm...I don't think so."
"And why not???"
"Look, I know this is dumb but when he kissed me good night I kind of had my hand behind his ear............and there was something back there."
"Something??!!! Like what KIND of somethng??"

I dunno what it was but I wasn't goin' back to find out.
It could have been a bug for all I know and for all I know that coulda turned out to be a beautiful relationship but a girl's gotta draw her line somewhere.
And mine is drawn just this side of suspicious entities lurking behind ears.

Eat Pork.
Cover your mouth when you cough.

And you out there....you know who you are......wash behind your ears.

Mike's Swearing-In

A proud day for my son.

Multi-tasking and not so well

I have a paper due tomorrow and I can't seem to get my thoughts together. Maybe it's because I know I'm working in San Francisco next weekend and I have so much to do before I fly out on Friday morning before the sun comes up. There are only so many directions this brain of mine can travel in one evening. I know I used to rock one baby in one arm, be changing the diaper of his brother, be stirring the morning oatmeal with a free hand and simultaneously letting the dog out for his morning poop. All this I swear to you I did and still managed to remain......well....haggard, worn, stressed and more than a little sensitive to comments like, "so what do you stay-at-home moms DO all day??"

So I'm sitting here a lifetime later, haggard, worn and stressed and there is not a baby or a pooping dog in sight. I'm Nair'ing my upper lip because the goofy little chick who works at my nail place said to me "You want wax? We do lips? You look like boy!" and god help me, I don't want to "look like boy!!!" not with the demand for haggard, worn, stressed divorced chicks with wrinkles and itsy bitsy bank accounts such as it is. And I'm trying to figurer out this paper. And I'm also paying some bills online.

How tough should it be? Outline the paper, fill in around the points and wrap it all up with a nice conclusion? Log on to the power company website, enter my username and password, enter the amount...click and a click and a credit card and double click...............all the while, making a list on a yellow legal pad of all the things I need to take with me to San Fran.

Well. You want to know what happened? Ok I'll tell you what happened. I burnt my lip. It's all red and puffy and swollen. Now I "look like boy who got hit with baseball on upper lip". And simultaneously I can't seem to even get points A and B to make one bit of sense for this research paper, thus there IS no research paper. And for the reasonable service charge of $4.75 I just paid the power company a total of 80 cents. That's right. I paid them EIGHTY CENTS and they charged me FOUR DOLLARS AND SEVENTY FIVE CENTS for the privilege of paying on line. Intending to pay them the full $80 bucks I owed them, I entered 8 and I entered 0 and didn't think to check for decimal points and stuff.

DID I see the disclaimer at the last moment that said something along the lines of "Warning, please be aware once you click "Approve" your payment can NOT be changed......"

Well yes. Fleetingly, yes I did see it. I saw it and I totally ignored it because I was wiping Nair off my damn lip at the time and I was watching Shawn Johnson kick ass on Dancing with the Stars and my cat was throwing up a leftover chocolate cupcake into one of my suede clogs and I just sort of spontaneously clicked which is what haggard, worn and stressed women do when they are multitasking and watching recycled cupcake fill their favorite shoes. Thus, I paid the power company 80 cents.

Yes, of course I can log back on and pay the $79.20 balance now due.
For another service charge???? Helllllllllllllllll no and can I get an AMEN from anyone to that???

I'm tired. Shawn did a nice job. Well heck of course she did a nice job...easy for her, she's young and adorable and has leg muscles that could squeeze open a coconut. Might as well face it, this paper just is NOT going to happen tonight and they're gonna shut my power off anyway, might as well go to bed...at least it'll be dark.

Tomorrow will be brand new day full of lovely possibilities.

Whew.......!!!!!

I'm sitting here mindlessly watching Poltergeist II just because it's on. This is a very dumb movie. I know it's old but it's the first time I've ever seen it. Ok, maybe on the big screen it would be horrifying. Not so much this afternoon. I keep thinking, what a mean way to treat a nice little girl in cute red jammies. She should be having a nice bowl of ice cream and heading off to a bedtime story. Harry Potter is on later. Love that movie and it's just nice to be snuggled into my couch tonight doing not a thing.

My April roared in like a lion. First week Mike flew in with my little Victoria on Wednesday, Sar flew home from Portland on Thursday and my cousin Margie flew in from California on Friday. After a great girlie night we all got dressed up for Mike and Nikki's engagement party on Saturday night. Victoria was frilly and beautiful in her little black velvet and red satin dress and was prancing aorund my place like a princess. Grandma Debbie tried real hard to get that beautifully wispy reddish Welsh hair of hers knotted up top her head in a proper do but there are good reasons why we pay hair chicks to do that sort of thing. And her mommy is a fabulous hair chick! She's used to the best, no way I could match her magic. After a couple of false starts, we ended up with a very nice little pony tail with special-evening curls. Her little black velvet shoes and tights ("they're my PANTYHOSE, Grandma") were the finishing touch. It was pouring down rain when we left for the party. Watched the Princess dodge puddles as she ran with Aunt Margie into the party and made a mental note to email my best buddy John and thank him again for my favorite artsy-fartsy umbrella.

Mid-party the kids got on the DJ's microphone and made an announcement..........we have a surprise for you, we're getting married here tonight!.............and they rolled back a big, movable wall in the party lodge behind which was a nifty candlelit chapel set up. Nikki and Mike ducked out of the party for 10 minutes, changed into "Here comes the bride..." duds and right then and there, we had a wedding. Without the advantage of a proper wedding rehearsal all of the surprise attendants did a great job, including Victoria who accepted the official duties of Flower Girl with the royal finesse to which she was clearly born.

And lahh tee dahh and yada yada yada....I do, I do too.....smooch, smooch.....and we danced the night awayyyyyyyyyyyyy.
Victoria was right there on the floor, shakin' it with all of the other pretty girls. Click on the arrow below the video screen:

It was a fun night. An exhausting, perfect, fun, fun night. The next couple of days we spent just hanging out and having fun. Auntie Sara and Victoria spent some quality time together which included a 3-D movie that required wicked cool glasses.

Wednesday morning Victoria and I got in the car, drove to Omaha and we flew her home to Virginia where mom and Josh and Nana were waiting. I make this trip with her 3-5 times a year. Friends ask me if it isn't exhausting and wonder how she likes flying. Victoria is a seasoned traveler. She could give the pre-flight safety talk herself if the flight attendants would let her. And we just make a real fun Grandma Debbie and Victoria day out of it.

We laugh and draw pictures in the airports and we have fun on the plane.

This particular flight was not without incident. Earlier in the week, Princess Victoria discovered her first loose tooth.

She was so excited. She called Mom. She called Dad.

We watched it for 3 days and it got looser and looser............you guessed it. Somewhere over Michigan at about 30,000 feet the tooth came out. She kept trying to pull it and it was hanging by a thread so finally Grandma helped. And there it was.

I'd forgotten how tiny baby teeth are as I carefully wrapped it up in the corner of an envelope and tucked it into my purse so she could put it under her pillow for the tooth fairy. She told me that she thought the tooth fairy would probably leave her some jewelry. And cash. She was grinning and freshly toothless when the plane touched down in Norfolk.

I was sitting on the bed eating take-out Chinese in my airport hotel by 8, on a plane for home again at 6 the next morning, back to work Friday, helped clean at my moms house Saturday morning and babysat for some friends on Saturday night. (Are you still with me??)

Babysitting has certainly changed. When I got there little Aidan was already asleep upstairs and there was a little tv screen thingie in the living room where I could watch her and hear her all evening. As I sat on the couch and played with the dogs, I watched her stretch and dream and wiggle all over the crib, but she never woke up. It was the coolest thing!!! Watching a baby sleep on a little tv screen. AHHHHH-MAZING. (I'm showing my age, aren't I??) I was a little bummed. Never even got to hold the baby. But it was fun watching her wiggle and sleep on that little screen, kind of like a mini-movie next to the one I was watching on the bigger screen.

Sunday morning my David and his girlfriend invited me and the other kids over for brunch. Love it when the kids cook for me!!!! The two of them are a perfect match. They are both computer gamers. Although their dining table was cleared and nicely set for brunch, they tell me it's usually set with back-to-back computers and........as his sister tried to describe to me later this week........enough controllers and gaming props that it sort of looks like the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise in there. Over brunch he told us his job as a manager had been eliminated. He was offered a lateral position or a nice severance package. He took the package, he's got a plan, he's diving off into a brand new direction. Man but I DO love it that my kids are fearless. This mama was grinning allllllllllll the way home with her lovely Easter lily next to her in the front seat.

I spent the rest of Easter Sunday squeezing my cerebral cortex to it's maximum pressure all afternoon, trying to do my homework. I've got a B+ in this class right now and it's driving this A-lovin' girl crazy. Tuesday night was class. This bears yet another mention of advancing technology and my efforts to keep up with it. We don't hand in homework. We upload it. I know this will come as no surprise to anyone under the age of 40 I suppose, but it's a freakin' MIRACLE to me. No hard copies. No "my dog ate it" excuses. Nope. I just log on to the university website and UPLOAD MY HOMEWORK. If you don't know what that means..........well, if you don't know what that means you must be my age. I can't explain it. Somehow one minute it's HERE. And then after a few clicks and stuff....it's THERE. Honest, it gives me the willies just to say it. Like Big Brother is living in my living room...

Mid-week after Easter Sar drove in from Portland (having flown back after the wedding festivities and turned right around to bring her car back) after nine months living there, house sitting for a dear friend. She's in town for a couple of weeks and will be heading off to Tennessee where she'll be working as a counselor in an "outward bound" kind of program for at-risk kids. It's fun having her home even though she's got lots of places to be and we won't be seeing her much this visit. (That's one thing about raising really great kids who have lots of friends. When they grow up you have to be understanding and share them with the world. But I'll tell you what, the phone calls home and the postcards are great!)

Anyway, Monday I left work early, picked up Sara and drove North to a suburb to watch my son get sworn in as a police officer. Big week for him after getting married a few days earlier. Officer Mike is badge #101 and reports to the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy in a couple of weeks for training. He has assured me, should I speed in his town he will be obligated to give me a ticket. I have assured him if that ever happens I'll be so tickled to think he's my son standing there all handsome in his uniform that I will probably record the entire thing on my cell phone, ask him to wave hi into the camera and I'll get out of the car, flag down a motorist and ask them to take our picture together to remember the moment for posterity. And of course I will post it on my blog. So make sure that badge is polished at all times, Mister, yer gonna be in the movies.

This morning I got up at 5:30 to make my 6:30 AM Weight Watchers meeting. Had my new friend and classmate Janell not told me she'd be there and expect to see me, honest, I would have stayed in bed. It was a drippy, soggy kind of morning. The window was open. I could hear robins. The cat was snoring. It would have been so easy to just roll over and snuggle into that pillow. But I did not!!! Thank you for the peer pressure Janell!!!! Once I pried my eyes open and got going, it was a great morning. Got my hair cut and I feel cute as a button.

Now we rest. Seriously. I'm barefoot. Nothing going on tonight. Promised myself I won't even LOOK at my homework until 7 tomorrow morning. Feels kind of anti-climactic to tell you the truth, but next weekend I'm working in San Francisco so I suppose it's a good idea to just kick back. I can do that.

Just not for long, it seems. You'll remember I mentioned my buddy John earlier. One of his favorite phrases: I'll rest when I'm dead. I'm not going to wait that long, but I know what he means. It seems there is always just so much to do.

Gotta Start Takin' the Train.....

This sort of thing hardly ever happens to me in airports...........

Takes me back......

How many of us ran out and bought another Moody Blues disk after watching this commercial for the first time??

Mama's got some brand new boots.

Suhhhweeeet!

When the gym can be hazardous to your health....

Chicken Parmesan

It's my favorite kind of phone call.
"Ma? You home? Make some coffee, I'm comin' over."
"Mom, want to meet us out for some pizza tomorrow?"
Or like this week.........."Mom, have you had dinner yet? Do you like Chicken Parmesan? We're on our way over. I'll cook."

A few minutes later they arrived at my door.
Chef Dave brings all his culinary necessities in an orange bait bucket.

Do not be deceived by the bucket....



.....inside is everything he needed to make dinner. Like a nice bottle of Pinot Grigio.

Chicken. Tomatoes. Basil.
Cheese.

Mmmmmm!!

Thanks for a great dinner and good company, you two.
XOXOXOXOXOXO

A favorite quote.

Never think that God's delays are God's denials.

Hold on; hold fast; hold out.

Patience is genius.

Comte de Buffon (Mathematician & Naturalist) 1707 - 1788)

Post Script to My Fabulous Morning Drive.....

Without disparaging any of them, my home town is characterized by several distinct neighborhoods. On of them is the far West side of town. It is new. Brand new. I can barely find my way around over there any more. When I was growing up here it was all cornfields and pastures full of cow pies. In the past decade those wide open spaces have become parking lots, chain restaurants and big, gas-guzzling SUV's driven by ladies in designer sunglasses. The insurance and financial industries are the corporate anchors in our city. Most of them built their massive home offices on this side of town.

The opposite side of this city, on the other side of that big, gold-dome capitol that I showed you earlier this morning, things look much like they did thirty years ago. Small changes happen, mostly in the form of individual neighborhoods updating their faces but up and down the main drags and the side streets it's blue-collar just about everywhere you see. The State Fairgrounds are on this side of town. And if they were honest, lots and lots of people that live West of here wouldn't think of driving this far East. Not for any reason.

This is my side of town. I raised my family in a "bedroom community" not far from here. It feels like home. The people feel more like family to me.

I crossed paths with two of them this morning:


I'm in line at Walgreens.
Shampoo. Laundry soap. Cat food.
All the items have been scanned and tucked into bags.
I'm swiping my ATM card when the clerk reaches over and touches my hand lightly to get my attention.

"Did you happen to notice the free samples over there on that table?"
She points to a display halfway down a nearby aisle.
"Oh. No...I don't think I noticed those." I smiled, waiting for my receipt.
"You might want to walk down there and take a few," she said. "They're free. I think you might want to try some. They're wrinkle cream. They say it really works." She touches my hand again briefly. "Especially around the eyes....."



Ok, so I smiled and thanked her, walked down and grabbed a bunch of them.



And yes, I spent the next hour sneaking peaks into the rear view mirror, trying to get a good look at just how bad the wrinkles are getting.





Seriously??? SERIOUSLY???!!!!!! Maybe it was the way the light was shining in the windows of Walgreen's.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A few minutes later I'm driving down a main street on my side of town. Sun roof open. Window rolled down. Coming to a stop at a red light, I'm listening to Lenny Kravitz and enjoying the way the sun was heating up the top of my head when I hear someone yell.

"Hey there!"
I ignore it. Probably kids yelling at eachother.
"HEY. HEY LADY!!"
I look over to my left. There is an old clunker of a car and a big guy in a black t-shirt and a NASCAR ball cap sitting behind the wheel, looking my way through his open window.
Is he talking to me???
"Hey Lady. Do you know where there are any junk yards on this side of town?"
Cross traffic light turns yellow. Yeahhh, as a matter of fact I do......I thought to myself, laughing.
"Turn around, go back to the Fairgrounds and drive South. You can't miss 'em."
The light turned. He smiled and waved thanks. We both went on our merry Saturday morning way.

Trust me.
Great stuff like that just doesn't happen to me on the other side of town.
And that's why I love it over here.
These are my people.

Everything Becomes Ordinary

I work in an extraordinarily creative and interesting environment. Even so, in the the day-in and day-out routine of my daily presence in the place, it becomes ordinary. I thought about that sort of thing this morning. It's picture-perfect pre-Spring gorgeous outside. I was driving along with the sun roof open, taking the same route that I take to work every morning.

Sitting at a traffic light I looked up and for some reason...........maybe it was the way the light hit the dome, maybe it's just the rich, blue backdrop of a sky....all of a sudden I was aware of a beautiful place I pass every single day on my way to work.

This is our state capitol building.
After half a century of living here, I've seen it plenty of times. I can tell you all about the inside and point out when it's not the weekend, that parking lot is full even when the state legislature isn not in session. Most days I drive by and don't give it a passing thought. It's just another freckle on the morning-drive landscape.

Today I remembered how pretty it is.

Yup. That's real gold on the dome. They applied it the old-artisan way, in thin sheets, one square at a time.

Gold trim on the mini-domes too. They're my favorites. Sort of Vatican-looking.

The curtains in those windows are longer than my entire house.
And you can't see them in these pictures but this morning there were several people up there leaning over the very top balcony, the one wayyyyyyyyyyyy up there sitting on top of the big gold dome. I've been up there several times, but not since I was a kid. First of all, the climb would probably kill me now. And second, last I knew, access was limited to everyone but certain dignitaries for security reasons. Non-dignitary and bad knees. Good bet that my balcony days are but a memory.

Just down the hill from the that building with a splendid daily view of the gold dome, is the local retail location for the product line that my company creates. I thought you might like to take a little tour inside the place. It's always colorful but seems even more so to those of us extricating ourselves from the clutches of winter.......

Take a peek inside the doors of Sticks Gallery / East Village:

These are 7 x 7' wall plaques our artists create. Lots of people collect them. Each one of them is made by hand in our studio here in Des Moines.

Love the color palette on this set of nesting tables our artists designed. While it is Sticks that brings most people into our stores, we also carry the work of many other artists. I think I took a dozen photos of these fabulous flowers.

Don't they just feel like spring??
Can't WAIT to get out my patio umbrella.

The Perfect Little Baby Gift

Ohhhhh man, did I ever have fun shopping for a little bit of a baby gift this weekend. If you haven't seen these you're going to want to get out to your friendly neighborhood foo-foo baby store and buy some, even if you don't know anyone with a new baby. They are just sooooooooo darn cute!!!

Yup. It's the PeePee TeePee!!
They come in a little soft flannel bag in the sweetest of baby blues (of course!)
and inside..............

Little teensy tiny teepees!!!

For little teensy, tiny............well.......you know!!

Washable! And soft as a baby's behind.
Tell me they're not the cutest little things you've ever seen. (The teepees!)
And in case you're not getting the idea, I've enlisted the assistance of
my favorite bear to help me demonstrate:

Yeahhhhhhhhh, we all get it now, don't we.
With a properly placed teepee you can change a little feller's nappy without getting sprayed.
All sorts of cute, poetic thoughts come to mind...but I will spare you the rhyming sentiments relating to happily teepee'd peepee's.

I think they're wayyyy cool and I'm sending this first little bag of
them off to a new mama in California tomorrow.

And thank you for enduring the momentary indignity in the name of eductation, Mr. Bear.